Focus Voters’ Anger on Corporations, Not Just Republicans

After a massive signature-gathering campaign, Ohio voters overruled the legislature and Governor John Kasich in 2011 with a 61.5 percent vote to restore collective bargaining. Such focused ballot initiatives can allow unions to avoid the messy and various reasons that people vote for candidates. Photo: Transport Workers Union.

Now that we’re well past the euphoria of election night, it’s time to consider what the vote really meant, and how unions can move forward.

First, it’s clear that we in labor can’t dedicate ourselves to “holding the president accountable” because Obama is not, in fact, accountable to us. He raised $1 billion for his re-election, and most of it was not from us.

We chose the lesser of two evils. Having won, we shouldn’t delude ourselves that, if we work him right, Obama could turn out to be really great. What we bought is four more years of the same crappy, disappointing government we had before.